


Firebird

by ashen_key



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha's drunk on vodka that came from a bottle which only has Cyrillic letters, and she's telling Clint about fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firebird

Natasha doesn't get drunk very often. 

Rarely, in fact. Very rarely. 

She'll sip wine and champagne at parties and expensive dinners; she'll toss back a beer or two after work, after a mission; she'll rattle off cocktails and lick salt off her palm before letting tequila burn down her throat; but she won't get drunk. Being drunk means vodka, being drunk means the past has caught up with her. 

Now, she's drunk. Vodka from Russia, from New York, from _Little Odessa by the Sea_ , which is a place she avoids. Normally. 

She's drunk on vodka that came from a bottle which only has Cyrillic letters, and she's telling Clint about fire. 

Her parents died in a fire, she tells him, because she's like the, the, the _zhar-ptitsa_. Like the bird on fire. 

A phoenix, he says. 

Another word for it, she says, and the glass in her hand is water, not vodka. Clint's fault, that one, but she doesn't trust her legs to work enough to grab the bottle off him.

(He's not drinking, just keeping the bottle in his hands and watching her.)

The fire burned down the building and burned Natalya Alianovna Romanova up, and then _they_ came. Out of the ashes the Red Room created a new Natalya, a new _Natasha_ because they didn't use her first name. And she burned down a safehouse, when she took her weapons and ran. Fire to distract them, to burn the files and the computers. 

Burn it all down and then she made herself again, into _Natasha Romanoff_ , Black Widow for hire.

(He's silent, watching her with the bottle in his hands.

She wants another drink, but he won't give it to her. Bastard.)

There was another fire. The. The. 

The hospital, he says, quietly, and she nods, takes a drink, wishes it were vodka enough to chase the screams and stench out of her mind. 

Burned everything down to ash, rose up all new and cleansed, but it's all bullshit. Utter _bullshit._

He gives her a look, which she understands, so she continues. 

She's still the same damn bird she was to start with, she says. 

She just gets new feathers.


End file.
